Quantum communication system

ABSTRACT

A quantum communication system including an emitter and a receiver, the emitter including an encoder and at least one photon source and being configured to pass a signal pulse and a reference pulse, which are separated in time, through the encoder and output the signal pulse and the reference pulse. The reference pulse has a higher probability of containing more than one photon than the signal pulse. The receiver includes a decoder and at least one detector for measuring the signal pulse and the reference pulse.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a division of and claims the benefit of priorityunder 35 U.S.C. §120 from U.S. Ser. No. 10/890,286 filed Jul. 14, 2004(now U.S. Pat. No. 8,306,225 issued Nov. 6, 2012), the entire contentsof which are incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention is concerned with the field of quantumcommunication systems and emitters and receivers which may be used insuch systems. Specifically, the present invention is concerned with theuse of a reference pulse in a quantum communication system in order toprovide active stabilisation of the system.

2. Discussion of Background

In quantum communication systems, information is transmitted between asender and a receiver by encoded single quanta, such as single photons.Each photon carries one bit of information encoded upon a property ofthe photon, such as its polarisation, phase or energy/time. The photonmay even carry more than one bit of information, for example, by usingproperties such as angular momentum.

Quantum key distribution which is a technique for forming a sharedcryptographic key between two parties; a sender, often referred to as“Alice”, and a receiver often referred to as “Bob”. The attraction ofthis technique is that it provides a test of whether any part of the keycan be known to an unauthorised eavesdropper (Eve). In many forms ofquantum key distribution, Alice and Bob use two or more non-orthogonalbases in which to encode the bit values. The laws of quantum mechanicsdictate that measurement of the photons by Eve without prior knowledgeof the encoding basis of each causes an unavoidable change to the stateof some of the photons. These changes to the states of the photons willcause errors in the bit values sent between Alice and Bob. By comparinga part of their common bit string, Alice and Bob can thus determine ifEve has gained information.

Examples of quantum communication systems are described in GB 2 368 502from the current applicant.

When the photons are encoded using phase, typically, a Mach-Zenderinterferometer is provided in both Alice's sending equipments and Bob'sreceiving equipment. Each interferometer has a long path and a shortpath. Details of how the photons are encoded using this arrangement willbe described later. However, it is required that photons that contributeto the key or the encoded information through the short arm of oneinterferometer and the long arm of the other interferometer. Thus, thephotons may follow one of two paths: Path 1, the short arm of Alice'sinterferometer and the long arm of Bob's interferometer; and Path 2, thelong arm of Alice's interferometer and the short arm of Bob'sinterferometer.

Both interferometers will contain a phase modulator which can be used toeither randomly vary the phase of photons passing through theinterferometer either randomly or under the control of either Alice orBob.

However, it is necessary that any other phase delay between Path 1 andPath 2 is constant throughout transmission as any other phase delay canincrease the quantum bit error rate and can even make the systemunusable if it exceeds a certain level. Thus, in practice, one has tocalibrate the phase delay every several tens of seconds or severalminutes depending on the stability of the system. This introduces a deadtime to the system. Also, during key distribution, no informationconcerning the phase drift can be obtained. This causes extradifficulties in identifying the presence of an eavesdropper as Alice andBob cannot identify the source of the quantum bit error rate. It canarise from either an eavesdropper or a variation in the phase drift.

It is also required that the polarisation of photons be stabilised.However, this presents difficulties as photons will generally be sentfrom Alice to Bob along a single mode fibre link and the polarisation ofphotons passing through this link will vary due to birefringence regionscommonly existing in the single mode fibre. For example, variations inthe temperature can cause the polarisation to vary randomly. It isnecessary to be able to correct any rotation of the polarisation whichhas occurred in the fibre link because some of the components of Bob'sequipment are polarisation sensitive and variations in the polarisationwill again result in a higher error rate. Also, the bit rate of thesystem may decrease in equipment where polarisation beam splitters areused to ensure that photons pass through the short arm of oneinterferometer and the long arm of the other.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention attempts to address the above problems and, in afirst aspect provides a quantum communication system comprising anemitter and a receiver, said emitter comprising encoding means and atleast one photon source, said emitter being configured to pass a signalpulse and a reference pulse, which are separated in time, through saidencoding means and output the signal pulse and the reference pulse, saidreference pulse having a higher probability of containing more than onephoton than said signal pulse, said receiver comprising decoding meansand at least one detector for measuring said signal pulse and saidreference pulse.

By outputting a reference pulse which passes through the encoding meansas well as the signal pulse, the reference pulse may be measured inorder to determine variations in the system, for example, phasevariations and polarisation variations.

By outputting a reference pulse and a signal pulse through the sameencoding means it is possible to output a reference pulse for eachsignal pulse. This allows any variations in phase or polarisation of thesystem to be monitored during transmission of a key. Thus, Alice and Bobcan determine if an increase in the bit error rate is due to aneavesdropper or due to phase or polarisation drift.

Further, preferably, the receiver comprises feedback means for alteringa component of the receiver on the basis of the measured referencesignal. For example, the component may be a means to alter thepolarisation or phase of photons, specifically, the component may be apolarisation rotation, delay line or phase modulator. Thus, the systemmay be actively balanced or aligned during transmission of the key.

Typically, the reference pulse will be 10 to 10,000 times stronger thanthe signal pulse.

In a preferred embodiment, the encoding means are phase encoding meanscomprising an encoding interferometer with an entrance member connectedto a long arm and a short arm, said long arm and said short arm beingjoined at their other ends by an exit member, one of the said armshaving a phase modulator which allows the phase of a photon passingthrough that arm to be set to one of at least two values.

Where the encoding means comprises an interferometer, the decoding meansshould also comprise a decoding interferometer, said decodinginterferometer comprising an entrance member connected to a long arm anda short arm, said long arm and said short arm being joined at theirother ends by an exit member, one of said arms having a phase modulatorwhich allows the phase of a photon passing through that arm to be set toat least one of two values.

Typically, the phase modulators will be provided in the short arms.However, the phase modulators may also be provided in the long arms ofboth interferometers. Only photons which have passed through the longarm of one interferometer and the short arm of the other are of use incommunicating the key. In the four-state protocol, which is sometimesreferred to as BB84, Alice modulates her phase modulator to one of fourdifferent values, corresponding to phase shifts of 0°, 90°, 80° and270°. Phase 0° and 180° are associated with bits 0 and 1 in a firstencoding basis, while 90° and 270° are associated with bits zero and onein a second encoding basis. The second encoding basis is chosen to benon-orthogonal to the first.

Information may alternatively be sent using the B92 protocol where Aliceapplies phase shifts of 0° and 90° on her phase modulator randomly.Alice associates 0° with bit=0 and 90° delay with bit=1. Bob applies180° or 270° to his phase modulator randomly and associates 180° withbit=1 and 270° with bit=0.

In order to increase the bit rate, it is preferable for the system tocomprise polarisation directing means for directing photons which havepassed through the long arm of the encoding interferometer through theshort arm of the decoding interferometer and for directing photons whichhave passed through the short arm of the encoding interferometer throughthe long arm of the decoding interferometer.

These means may be achieved by configuring the encoding interferometerto ensure that photons which have passed through the long arm of theinterferometer exit the interferometer with a first polarisation andphotons which have passed through the short arm of the interferometerexit the interferometer with a second polarisation. The firstpolarisation being orthogonal to the second polarisation direction. Apolarisation beam splitter may then be provided as the entrance memberto the decoding interferometer to direct photons with the firstpolarisation along the short arm of the decoding interferometer andphotons with the second polarisation through the long arm of thedecoding interferometer.

The reference pulse and the signal pulse pass through the encoding meansin the same manner. However, to avoid an eavesdropper obtaininginformation about the signal pulse from the reference pulse, thereference pulse is either not encoded as it passes through theinterferometer, for example, the phase modulator is switched to a fixedencoding position for the reference pulse or the reference pulse isencoded in a different manner to that of the signal pulse. The coding ofthe reference pulse may be decided between Alice and Bob beforetransmission begins so that Bob can correctly measure the referencepulse.

The receiver comprises at least one detector for measuring said signalpulse and the reference pulse. As the reference pulse and the signalpulse arrive at the receiver at different times, it is possible to use asingle detector to monitor both the signal and reference pulses.However, this is not advantageous because typically, avalanche photodiodes are used as the detectors. When one of these detectors detects aphoton, a large number of charge carriers are generated within the diodeforming an easily detectable current. Some of these carriers may belocalised at hetero-junctions or at trap states within thesemiconductor. Carriers confined in these traps can have a lifetime ofseveral microseconds. Therefore, the diode can only be used once thetrapped carriers have decayed and thus the detector has a fixed samplingrate which is usually the limiting factor in the information bit rate ofthe system. Thus, although it is possible, it is not desirable to havethe same detector detecting both the reference and signal pulses.

Previously, a system has been described comprising polarisationdirecting means which ensures that photons which pass along the longpath of one interferometer pass through the short path of the otherinterferometer. In such a system, where there is no variation in thepolarisation due to the passage of photons through the fibres, areference detector provided at an output of the exit member of thedecoding interferometer would expect to just detect a single referencepeak due to photons flowing along the long path of one interferometerand the short path of the other. However, if the polarisation of thephotons is varied during their passage though the emitter and receiveror though the fibre link connecting the emitter and receiver, somephotons will flow along both long paths through the interferometers andsome photons will pass through both short paths of the twointerferometers. Thus, an early satellite peak is seen due to photonswhich pass through the two short arms and a late satellite peak is seendue to photons which pass through the two long arms. Thus, the referencedetector may be configured to monitor either the late or early satellitepeak. The presence of either of these peaks indicates that thepolarisation of the photons is being rotated as it passes through thefibres of the system.

The reference pulse will be outputted from one of two ports of the exitmember of the decoding interferometer. Typically, the exit member willbe a fibre coupler. The phase of the encoding phase modulator and thephase of the decoding phase modulator may be set to ensure that thereference pulse is directed to the port which outputs to the referencedetector.

Preferably, the receiver comprises a polarisation rotator positioned inthe photon path prior to the decoding means. The reference detector maybe connected to a feedback circuit which controls the polarisationrotator in order to correct the polarisation directions prior to thedecoding means.

It is also desirable to correct for any rotations in the polarisationdirection in systems which do not use polarisation in order to directphotons down the desired arms of the interferometers. One reason forthis is that phase modulators are sensitive to the polarisationdirection, variations in the polarisation may still increase the biterror rate. In systems which do not use polarisation directing means,photons in the emitter are generally outputted with just a singlepolarisation direction.

This polarisation direction may be monitored by inserting a polarisationbeam splitter before the decoding means in the receiver. Thepolarisation beam splitter is configured to pass photons with thedesired polarisation and reflect photons with an orthogonal polarisationinto a reference detector. Preferably, the reference detector isconnected to a feedback circuit which is in turn connected to apolarisation controller provided in the photon path before thepolarisation beam splitter. Thus, the polarisation controller may beused to correct the rotation of the polarisation to minimise the signalat the reference detector.

The reference pulse may also be used to stabilise and monitor the phaseof the system. The reference detector will be connected to one of theoutputs of the decoding interferometer's exit member. The exit memberwill typically be a fibre coupler. If the phase of the system remainsstable (except for the phase changes introduced by the phase modulatorsof the interferometers), then a constant count rate is expected at thereference detector. Any variation in the phase drift of the system willbe manifested by a varying count rate. Thus, by monitoring the arrivaltime of the reference peaks, any variations in the count rate may beestablished. Preferably, integration means are provided so that thecount rate may be integrated over a period of time in order to averagestatistical fluctuations in the arrival rate of the reference pulse. Theintegration time may typically be a fraction of a second, for example,0.1 seconds.

Preferably, the reference detector is connected to a feedback circuitwhich is in turn connected to a phase correcting means provided in oneof the arms of the decoding interferometer. The phase correcting meansmay be provided by a variable fibre stretcher or a variable air gap,etc. Alternatively, the phase correcting means may be provided by anadjustment means for the phase modulator of the receiver to allow thephase to be balanced. In other words, feedback is used to re-calibratethe zero points of the phase modulators. Thus, the interferometer phasemay be balanced using the results from the reference detector.

The phase reference detector may be used to monitor the centralreference pulse to monitor variations in the phase alone. However, ifpolarisation direction control means are provided in the system, thenthe reference monitoring may be used to monitor either the early or latesatellite peaks in order to calibrate both the polarisation and thephase at the same time.

In the B92 communication protocol, it is only necessary to use onedetector for the signal peak. Therefore, the system may be arranged witha signal pulse detector connected to one output of the exit member andreference pulse detector connected to the other output of the exitmember.

In the BB84 protocol, two signal pulse detectors are required, oneconnected to one output of the exit member and the other connected tothe other output of the exit member. In this arrangement, both thereference detector and a signal pulse detector may be connected to thesame output of the exit member. A fibre couple may be provided to directphotons from the port of the exit member into either the referencedetector or the signal pulse detector.

The reference pulse will contain more photons than the signal pulse.Therefore, the detector coupler is typically a coupling ratio of 95/5 isused with the 95% port attached to the signal pulse detector and the 5%port attached to the reference pulse detector. This is chosen to ensurethat the reference pulse detector does not reduce the photon count rateof the signal pulses significantly at the signal pulse detector. As thereference pulse will contain many photons, even with a high couplingratio, the reference detector should still receive some photons of thereference pulse. As the reference pulse and the signal pulse arrive atthe detectors at different times, the signal pulse detector can beswitched off when the reference pulse arrives and is thus not affectedby the reference pulse photons.

In order to create both the signal pulse and reference pulse, theemitter may comprise a separator for dividing photon pulses emitted froma photon source into a signal pulse and a reference pulse.

The separator may comprise an entrance member, for example, a fibrecoupler, connected to a long arm and short arm, said long arm and saidshort arm being connected at the other ends to an exit member.Typically, the exit member will also be a fibre coupler.

As the reference pulse needs to be larger than the signal pulse, thecoupler may be an asymmetric coupler and may allow 90 to 99.99% of theinput along one arm to form the reference pulse. The reference pulse mayeither just proceed the signal pulse or may be delayed after the signalpulse.

The exit member of the separator is also preferably a coupler. Thecoupler will have two output ports and the photons will exit throughjust one of the output ports into the encoding interferometer or otherencoding means. In an alternative arrangement, the entrance member ofthe encoding interferometer is provided by the exit member of theseparator.

Typically, the separator is configured to introduce a time delay ofabout 10 ns.

Alternately, the reference pulse and the signal pulse may be generatedby separate sources. For example, a laser diode may be used to generatethe reference pulse and a dedicated single photon source may be used togenerate the signal pulse. Delay means will be provided in order todelay the reference pulse with respect to the signal pulse.

As previously explained, the detectors for both the reference pulse andthe signal pulse may be avalanche photo diodes. Preferably, the receivercomprises a gating means in order to keep the detectors in an on modeonly for the time when they expect to receive a signal pulse or areference pulse.

In a second aspect, the present invention provides an emitter for aquantum communication system, said emitter comprising encoding means andat least one photon source, said emitter being configured to pass asignal pulse and a reference pulse, which are separated in time, throughsaid encoding means and output the signal pulse and the reference pulse,said reference pulse having a higher probability of containing more thanone photon than said signal pulse.

In a third aspect, the present invention provides a receiver for aquantum communication system, said receiver comprising decoding meansand at least one detector for measuring a signal pulse and a referencepulse, said signal pulse and said reference pulse being separated intime and said reference pulse having a higher probability of containingmore than one photon than said signal pulse.

In a fourth aspect, the present invention provides a method ofcommunicating photon pulses from an emitter to a receiver, comprisinggenerating a signal pulse and a reference pulse separated in time in anemitter; passing both the signal pulse and the reference pulse throughthe same encoding means in said emitter and sending said pulses to areceiver; and measuring both the signal pulse and the reference pulse insaid receiver.

In a fifth aspect, the present invention provides a method of outputtingphotons from an emitter, the method comprising generating a signal pulseand a reference pulse separated in time in an emitter; passing both thesignal pulse and the reference pulse through the same encoding means insaid emitter and outputting said pulses.

The present invention will now be described with reference to thefollowing non-limiting embodiments in which:

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 a is a known quantum communication system and FIG. 1 b is a plotof the probability of a photon arriving at either of the detectors ofthe system of FIG. 1 a against time;

FIG. 2 a is a plot of clock signal against time for the system of FIG. 1a, FIG. 2 b is a plot of the output of the signal laser against time forthe system of FIG. 1 a, FIG. 2 c is a plot of the probability of thephoton arriving at either of Bob's detectors in the system of FIG. 1 a,FIG. 2 d is a plot of the modulator voltage against time for the systemsof FIG. 1 a and FIG. 2 e is a plot of detector gating bias against timefor the system of FIG. 1 a;

FIG. 3 a is a communication system in accordance with the preferredembodiment of the present invention and FIG. 3 b is a plot of theprobability of a photon arriving at either of the detectors in thesystem of FIG. 3 a against time;

FIG. 4 a is a plot of the clock signal against time for the system ofFIG. 3 a, FIG. 4 b is a plot of the signal laser output against time forthe system of FIG. 3 a, FIG. 4 c is a plot of the probability of aphoton arriving at either the reference detector or the signal detectorof FIG. 3 a, FIG. 4 d is a plot of the modulator bias against timeapplied to the interferometers of FIG. 3, FIG. 4 e is a plot of thegating voltage for the signal detector against time and FIG. 4 f is aplot of the gating voltage applied to the reference detector of thesystem of FIG. 3 a;

FIG. 5 a is a quantum communication system in accordance with apreferred embodiment of the present invention where the exit member ofthe separator provides the entrance member for the interferometer andFIG. 5 b is a plot of the probability of a photon arriving at either ofthe detectors of the system of FIG. 5 a against time;

FIG. 6 a is a quantum communication system in accordance with apreferred embodiment of the present invention optimised for use with theBB84 protocol and FIG. 6 b is plot of the probability of a photonarriving at any of the three detectors of the system of FIG. 6 a againsttime;

FIG. 7 a is quantum communication system in accordance with a preferredembodiment of the present invention having a separate signal pulsesource and reference pulse source and FIG. 7 b is a plot of theprobability of a photon arriving at either of the detectors of thesystem of FIG. 7 a against time;

FIG. 8 a is a quantum communication system in accordance with apreferred embodiment of the present invention showing a variation on thesource arrangement of the system of FIG. 7 a and FIG. 8 b is a plot ofthe probability of a photon arriving at either of the detectors of thesystem of FIG. 8 a against time; and

FIG. 9 a is a quantum communication system in accordance with apreferred embodiment of the present invention where photons transmittedbetween the emitter and receiver have the same polarisation and FIG. 9 bis a plot of the probability of a photon arriving at either of the twodetectors connected to the interferometer of the receiver of FIG. 9 aagainst time.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

FIG. 1 a shows a prior art quantum cryptography system based upon phaseencoding using a polarisation sensitive fibre interferometer.

The sender “Alice” 101 sends encoded photons to receiver “Bob” overoptical fibre 105.

Alice's equipment 101 comprises a signal laser diode 107, a polarisationrotator 108 configured to rotate the polarisation of pulses from signallaser diode 107, an imbalanced fibre Mach-Zender interferometer 133connected to the output of polarisation rotator 108, an attenuator 137connected to the output of the interferometer 133, a bright clock laser102, a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) coupler 139 coupling theoutput from attenuator 137 and clock laser 102 and bias electronics 109connected to said signal laser diode 107 and clock laser 102.

The interferometer 133 comprises an entrance coupler 130, one exit armof entrance coupler 130 is joined to long arm 132, long arm 132comprises a loop of fibre 135 designed to cause an optical delay, theother exit arm of entrance coupler 130 is joined to a short arm 131,short arm 131 comprises phase modulator 134 an exit polarising beamcombiner 136 is connected to the other ends of long arm 132 and shortarm 131. All components used in Alice's interferometer 133 arepolarisation maintaining.

During each clock signal, the signal diode laser 107 outputs one opticalpulse. The signal diode laser 107 is connected to biasing electronics109 which instruct the signal diode laser 107 to output the opticalpulse. The biasing electronics are also connected to clock laser 102.

The linear polarisation of the signal pulses outputted by diode laser107 is rotated by a polarisation rotator 108 so that the polarisation ofthe pulse is aligned to be parallel to a particular axis of thepolarisation maintaining fibre (usually the slow axis) of the entrancecoupler 130 of the interferometer 133. Alternatively the polarisationrotator 108 may be omitted by rotating the signal laser diode 107 withrespect to the axes of the entrance polarisation maintaining fibrecoupler 130.

After passing through the polarisation from rotator (if present) thesignal pulses are then fed into the imbalanced Mach-Zenderinterferometer 133 through a polarisation maintaining fibre coupler 130.Signal pulses are coupled into the same axis (usually the slow axis) ofthe polarisation maintaining fibre, of both output arms of thepolarisation maintaining fibre coupler 130. One output arm of the fibrecoupler 130 is connected to the long arm 132 of the interferometer whilethe other output arm of the coupler 130 is connected to the short arm131 of the interferometer 133.

The long arm 132 of the interferometer 133 contains an optical fibredelay loop 135, while the short arm 131 contains a fibre optic phasemodulator 134. The fibre optic phase modulator 134 is connected tobiasing electronics 109 which will be described in more detail later.The length difference of the two arms 131 and 132 corresponds to anoptical propagation delay of t_(delay). Typically the length of thedelay loop 135 may be chosen to produce a delay t_(delay)˜5 ns. Thus, aphoton travelling through the long arm 132 will lag that travellingthrough the short arm 131 by a time of t_(delay) at the exit 136 of theinterferometer 133.

The two arms 131, 132 are combined together with a polarisation beamcombiner 136 into a single mode fibre 138. The fibre inputs of thepolarisation beam combiner 136 are aligned in such a way that onlyphotons propagating along particular axes of the polarisationmaintaining fibre, are output from the combiner 136. Typically, photonswhich propagate along the slow axis or the fast axis are output bycombiner 136 into fibre 138.

The polarising beam combiner 136 has two input ports, an in-line inputport and a 90° input port. One of the input ports is connected to thelong arm 132 of the interferometer 133 and the other input port isconnected to the short arm 131 of the interferometer 133.

In this example, only photons polarised along the slow axis of thein-line input fibre of the in-line input port are transmitted by thepolarising beam combiner 136 and pass into the fibre 138. Photonspolarised along the fast axis of the in-line input fibre of the inputport are reflected and lost.

Meanwhile, at the 90° input port of the beam coupler 136, only photonspolarised along the slow axis of the 90° input fibre are reflected bythe beam combiner 136 and pass into the output port, while thosepolarised along the fast axis will be transmitted out of the beamcombiner 136 and lost.

This means that the slow axis of one of the two input fibres is rotatedby 90° relative to the output port. Alternatively the polarisation maybe rotated using a polarisation rotator (not shown) before one of theinput ports of the polarising beam combiner (136).

Thus, photon pulses which passed through the long 132 and short arms 131will have orthogonal polarisations.

The signal pulses are then strongly attenuated by the attenuator 137 sothat the average number of photons per signal pulse μ<<1.

The signal pulses which are outputted by the combiner 136 into singlemode fibre 138 are then multiplexed with a bright laser clock source 102at a different wavelength using a WDM coupler 139. The multiplexedsignal is then transmitted to the receiver Bob 103 along an opticalfibre link 105. The biasing electronics 109 synchronises the output ofthe clock source 102 with the signal pulse.

Bob's equipment 103 comprises WDM coupler 141, a clock recovery unit 142connected to an output of coupler 141, a polarisation controller 144connected to the other output of WDM coupler 141, an imbalancedMach-Zender interferometer 156 connected to the output of polarisationcontroller 144, two single photon detectors A 161, B 163 connected tothe output arms of interferometer 156 and biasing electronics 143connected to the detectors 161, 163. Bob's interferometer 156 containsan entrance polarising beam splitter 151 connected to both: a long arm153 containing a delay loop 154 and a variable delay line 157; and ashort arm 152 containing a phase modulator 155. The long arm 153 andshort arm 152 are connected to an exit polarisation maintaining 50/50fibre coupler 158. All components in Bob's interferometer 156 arepolarisation maintaining.

Bob first de-multiplexes the transmitted signal received from Alice 101via fibre 105 using the WDM coupler 141. The bright clock laser 102signal is routed to an optical receiver 142 to recover the clock signalfor Bob 103 to synchronise with Alice 101.

The signal pulses which are separated from the clock pulses by WDMcoupler 141 are fed into a polarisation controller 144 to restore theoriginal polarisation of the signal pulses. This is done so that signalpulses which travelled the short arm 131 in Alice's interferometer 133,will pass the long arm 153 in Bob's interferometer 156. Similarly,signal pulses which travelled through the long arm 132 of Alice'sinterferometer 133 will travel through the short arm 152 of Bob'sinterferometer.

The signal then passes through Bob's interferometer 156. An entrancepolarising beam splitter 151 divides the incident pulses with orthogonallinear polarisations. The two outputs of the entrance polarisation beamsplitter 151 are aligned such that the two output polarisations are bothcoupled into a particular axis, usually the slow axis, of thepolarisation maintaining fibre. This ensures that signal pulses takingeither arm will have the same polarisation at the exit 50/50polarisation maintaining coupler 158. The long arm 153 of Bob'sinterferometer 156 contains an optical fibre delay loop 154 and avariable fibre delay line 157, and the short arm 152 contains a phasemodulator 155. The two arms 152, 153 are connected to a 50/50polarisation maintaining fibre coupler 158 with a single photon detectorA 161, B 163 attached to each output arm. Due to the use of polarisingcomponents, there are, in ideal cases, only two routes for a signalpulse travelling from the entrance of Alice's interferometer to the exitof Bob's interferometer:

-   i. Alice's Long Arm 132−Bob's Short Arm 152 (L-S) and-   ii. Alice's Short Arm 131−Bob's Long Arm 153 (S-L).

The variable delay line 157 at Bob's interferometer 156 is adjusted tomake the propagation time along routes (i) and (ii) almost equal, withinthe signal laser coherence time which is typically a few picoseconds fora semiconductor distributed feed back (DFB) laser diode, and therebyensure interference of the two paths. Bob achieves this by adjusting thevariable fibre delay line 157 prior to key transfer.

FIG. 1 b is a plot of probability of a photon arriving at either ofdetectors A 161, B 163 against time. The early satellite signal peakshown in FIG. 1 b is due to photons travelling through Alice's short arm131 to Bob's short arm 152, and the late satellite signal peak is due tothose travelling through Alice's long arm 132 to Bob's long arm 153.Photons taking these non-ideal routes are due to incomplete polarisationcontrol by the polarisation controller 144, and they reduce quantum keydistribution rate. So, Bob has to adjust the polarisation controller 144prior to key distribution to minimise the strength of the satellitesignal pulses in FIG. 1 b.

By controlling the voltages applied to their phase modulators 134, 155,Alice and Bob determine in tandem whether paths (i) and (ii) undergoconstructive or destructive interference at detectors A 161 and B 163.The phase modulators 134, 155 are connected to respective biasing means109 and 143 to ensure synchronisation.

The variable delay line 157 can be set such that there is constructiveinterference at detector A 161 (and thus destructive interference atdetector B 163) for zero phase difference between Alice and Bob's phasemodulators. Thus for zero phase difference between Alice's and Bob'smodulators and for a perfect interferometer with 100% visibility, therewill be a negligible count rate at detector B 163 and a finite countrate at A 161.

If, on the other hand, the phase difference between Alice and Bob'smodulators 134, 155 is 180°, there should be destructive interference atdetector A 161 (and thus negligible count rate) and constructive atdetector B 163. For any other phase difference between their twomodulators, there will be a finite probability that a photon may outputat detector A 161 or detector B 163.

In the four-state protocol, which is sometimes referred to as BB84,Alice sets the voltage on her phase modulator to one of four differentvalues, corresponding to phase shifts of 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°. Phase0° and 180° are associated with bits 0 and 1 in a first encoding basis,while 90° and 270° are associated with 0 and 1 in a second encodingbasis. The second encoding basis is chosen to be non-orthogonal to thefirst. The phase shift is chosen at random for each signal pulse andAlice records the phase shift applied for each clock cycle.

Meanwhile Bob randomly varies the voltage applied to his phase modulatorbetween two values corresponding to 0° and 90°. This amounts toselecting between the first and second measurement bases, respectively.Bob records the phase shift applied and the measurement result (i.ephoton at detector A 161, photon at detector B 163, photon at detector A161 and detector B 163, or no photon detected) for each clock cycle.

In the BB84 protocol, Alice and Bob can form a shared key bycommunicating on a classical channel after Bob's measurements have takenplace. Bob tells Alice in which clock cycles he measured a photon andwhich measurement basis he used, but not the result of the measurement.Alice then tells Bob the clock cycles in which she used the sameencoding basis and they agree to keep only those results, as in thiscase Bob will have made deterministic measurements upon the encodedphotons. This is followed by error correction, to remove any errors intheir shared key, and privacy amplification to exclude any informationknown to an eavesdropper.

The system in FIG. 1 a is also suitable for implementing the two-stateprotocol known as B92. In this case only one detector is needed on oneoutput arm of Bob's interferometer 156. The arm lengths are calibratedso that for zero phase delay the photon rate into the detector ismaximum (constructive interference). For the B92 protocol Alice appliesphase shifts of 0 and 90° on her phase modulator randomly. Aliceassociates 0 phase delay with bit=0, and 90° phase delay with bit=1. Bobapplies 180″ or 270° to his phase modulator randomly, and associates180° with bit=1 and 270° with bit=0. After Bob's detections, he tellsAlice in which clock cycle he detected a photon and they keep these bitsto form a shared sifted key. They then perform error correction andprivacy amplification upon the sifted key.

Paragraph moved to introduction FIG. 2 shows plots of the timing schemeswhich may be used for the prior art quantum cryptographic system of FIG.1 a.

FIG. 2 a shows the clock signal produced by the biasing electronics 109as a function of time. The clock has a repetition period T_(clock). Therising edge of the clock signal is used to synchronise Alice's signallaser 107, Alice's phase modulator 134, Bob's phase modulator 155 andBob's detectors A 161 and B 163.

The output of the signal laser 107 is shown in FIG. 2 b. For each clockperiod, the signal laser 107 is triggered to produce one pulse of widthd_(laser).

FIG. 2 c plots the probability of a photon arriving at Bob's detectors A161 and B 163 (i.e. sum of the probabilities of a photon arriving atdetector A or detector B) as a function of time. Each signal pulse nowhas a width of d_(bob), which may be greater than d_(laser) due todispersion in the fibres of the system. Three arrival windows can beseen for each clock cycle. In order of arrival time, these correspond tophotons taking the short-short, long-short or short-long and long-longpaths through Alice's-Bob's interferometer as described with referenceto FIG. 1 b. Thus the first and second, as well as the second and thirdpulses are separated by a time delay t_(delay). The short-short andlong-long paths are due to imperfect polarisation beam splitting at theentrance 151 of Bob's interferometer 156.

Only photons arriving in the central window of each clock cycle undergointerference and are thus of interest. The single photon detectors A 161and B 163 are gated to be on only when the central pulse arrives in eachclock cycle, as shown in FIG. 2 e. This is achieved by biasing thedetector with a voltage V_(det2) for which it is in an active state fora short duration d_(det) during each clock cycle when the central pulsearrives. The bias voltage duration d_(det) is typically chosen to belonger than d_(bob) and is typically a few nanoseconds. At other timesthe detector is held at a voltage V_(det1) for which it is inactive.

For a single photon detector based upon an avalanche photodiode, timegating can be achieved by choosing V_(det2) to be greater than theavalanche breakdown voltage of the diode and V_(det1) to be less thanthe breakdown voltage. An avalanche can only be triggered when the diodebias exceeds the breakdown threshold.

The avalanche process generates a large number of charge carriers withinthe diode forming an easily detectable current. Some of these carriersmay be localised at hetero-junctions or at trap states within thesemiconductor. Carriers confined in such traps can have a lifetime ofseveral microseconds. If the diode is biased above the avalanchebreakdown threshold, before the trapped carriers have decayed, there isa possibility that a trapped carrier could be released and then triggeranother avalanche. The resultant spurious signal is called an‘afterpulse’.

To minimise the rate of afterpulse counts, the APD is biased inactivefor a sufficiently long time to allow most of the trapped charge todecay. Thus in a conventional quantum cryptography system, afterpulsinglimits the minimum period between APD detection gates and thus theminimum clock period T_(clock). Typically T_(clock)˜1 μs.

Alice's and Bob's phase modulators 134 and 155 are driven by separatevoltage pulse generators. The voltage pulse generators are alsosynchronised with the clock signal (of FIG. 2 a), as shown in FIG. 2 d.

During the pass of each signal pulse through the phase modulator, thepulse generator outputs one of a number of voltage levels, V_(mod1),V_(mod2) etc. For the BB84 protocol, for instance, Alice applied one offour different voltage levels, corresponding to phase shifts of 0°, 90°,180°, and 270°. Meanwhile Bob applies two voltage levels to hismodulator corresponding to phase shifts of 0° and 90°. Alice and Bobvary the applied phase shifts for each signal pulse randomly andindependently of one-another. FIG. 3 a shows an apparatus for quantumcryptography with active stabilisation.

Alice and Bob's equipment is similar to that described with reference toFIG. 1 a. As described with reference to FIG. 1 a, Alice 201 sendsphotons to Bob 203 along fibre 205.

Alice's equipment 201 comprises a signal laser diode 207, a polarisationrotator 208 connected to the output of said signal laser diode 207, asignal/reference pulse separator 224 connected to the output of saidpolarisation rotator 208, an imbalanced fibre Mach-Zender interferometer233 for encoding photons connected to the output of the signal/referencepulse separator 224, an attenuator 237 connected to the output of theinterferometer 233, a bright clock laser 202, a wavelength divisionmultiplexing (WDM) coupler 239 connected to both the output of theattenuator 237 and the bright clock laser 202 and bias electronics 209.The biasing electronics 209 are connected to both the clock laser 202and the signal laser 207.

The signal/reference pulse separator 224 comprises an entrance fibreoptic coupler 220 with a first output connected to a long arm 222 with aloop of fibre 223 designed to cause an optical delay and short arm 221.The separator 224 further comprises an exit fibre optic coupler 225combining two arms 221 and 222. All fibre in separator 224 ispolarisation maintaining.

The encoding interferometer 233 is identical to that described in FIG. 1a and comprises an entrance coupler 230, a long arm 232 with a loop offibre 235 designed to cause an optical delay, a short arm 231 with aphase modulator 234, and an exit polarising beam combiner 236. Allcomponents used in Alice's interferometer 233 are polarisationmaintaining.

During each clock signal, the signal laser diode laser 207 outputs oneoptical pulse under the control of biasing electronics 209.

The polarisation of the signal pulses is rotated by a polarisationrotator 208 so that the polarisation is aligned to be parallel to aparticular axis of the polarisation maintaining fibre, usually the slowaxis, of the entrance coupler 220 of separator 224. Alternatively thepolarisation rotator 208 may be omitted by rotating the signal laserdiode 207 with respect to the axes of the entrance coupler 220 ofseparator 224.

The signal pulses are then fed into the signal/reference pulse separator224 through polarisation maintaining fibre coupler 220. Signal pulsesare coupled into the same axis, usually the slow axis of thepolarisation maintaining fibre, from both output arms of thepolarisation maintaining fibre coupler 220.

The long arm 222 of the signal/reference pulse separator 224 contains anoptical fibre delay loop 223. The length difference of the two arms 221and 222 corresponds to an optical propagation delay of t_(reference).Typically the length of the delay loop 223 may be chosen to produce adelay t_(reference)˜10 ns. A photon travelling through the long arm 222will lag that travelling through the short arm 221 by a time oft_(reference) at the exit coupler 225 of the splitter 224.

The two arms 221 and 222 are combined together with an exit polarisationmaintaining fibre optic coupler 225. One output is connected into oneinput of the encoding Mach-Zender interferometer 233.

Coupling ratio of two couplers 220 and 225 can be either fixed orvariable. The ratios are chosen so that the reference and signal pulseshave unequal intensities. Typically, before entering the encodinginterferometer 233, the later reference pulse is 10-10000 times strongerthan the earlier signal pulse. For example, the entrance coupler 220 maybe asymmetric so as to allow 90% to 99.99% of the input into arm 221 andthe exit coupler 225 may be a 50/50 coupler. Alternatively, both theentrance 220 and exit couplers 225 may be 50/50 couplers and anappropriate attenuator placed in arm 221.

Properties of the signal and reference pulses are exactly the same, forexample polarisation, wavelength etc, except of course for theirintensity and time of injection into the interferometer 233.

The signal and reference pulses are then fed into the imbalancedMach-Zender interferometer 233 through a polarisation maintaining fibrecoupler 230. Signal and reference pulses are coupled into the same axis,usually the slow axis of the polarisation maintaining fibre, from bothoutput arms of the polarisation maintaining fibre coupler 230.

The long arm 232 of the interferometer 233 contains an optical fibredelay loop 235, while the short arm 231 contains a fibre optic phasemodulator 234. The length difference of the two arms 231 and 232corresponds to an optical propagation delay of t_(delay). Typically thelength of the delay loop 235 may be chosen to produce a delayt_(delay)˜5 ns. A photon travelling through the long arm 232 will lagthat travelling through the short arm 231 by a time of t_(delay) at theexit 236 of the interferometer 233.

The two arms 231, 232 are combined together with a polarisation beamcombiner 236 into a single mode fibre 238. The fibre inputs of thepolarisation beam combiner 236 are aligned in such a way that onlyphotons propagating along particular axes of the polarisationmaintaining fibre are output from the combiner 236. Typically, photonswhich propagate along the slow axis or the fast axis are output bycombiner 236 into single mode fibre 238.

The polarising beam combiner 236 has two input ports, an in-line inputport and a 90° input port. One of the input ports is connected to thelong arm 232 of the interferometer 233 and the other input port isconnected to the short arm 231 of the interferometer 233.

Only photons polarised along the slow axis of the in-line input fibre ofthe in-line input port are transmitted by the polarising beam combiner236 and pass into the fibre 238. Photons polarised along the fast axisof the in-line input fibre of the input port are reflected and lost.

Meanwhile, at the 90° input port of the beam coupler 236, only photonspolarised along the slow axis of the 90° input fibre are reflected bythe beam combiner 236 and pass into the output port, while thosepolarised along the fast axis will be transmitted out of the beamcombiner 236 and lost.

This means that the slow axis of one of the two input fibres is rotatedby 90° relative to the output port. Alternatively the polarisation maybe rotated using a polarisation rotator before one of the input ports ofthe polarising beam combiner.

Thus, photon pulses which passed through the long 232 and short arms 231will have orthogonal polarisations.

Both the signal and reference pulses are then strongly attenuated by theattenuator 237 so that the average number of photons per pulse μ<<1 forthe signal pulses. The reference pulses are typically 10-1000 strongerthan the signal pulses, and do not have to be attenuated to singlephoton level as information is only encoded upon signal pulses.

The attenuated pulses are then multiplexed with a bright laser clocksource 202 at a different wavelength using a WDM coupler 239. Themultiplexed signal is then transmitted to the receiver Bob 203 along anoptical fibre link 205.

The clock may also be delivered in other ways. For example Alice maymultiplex the signal pulses with a bright clock laser pulse at the sameor different wavelength which is delayed relative to the start of theclock cycle and which does not coincide with the signal pulses.Alternatively the clock signal may be sent on a separate optical fibre.Alternatively, synchronisation may be achieved by using a timingreference.

Bob's equipment 203 comprises WDM coupler 241, a clock recovery unit 242connected to one output of said WDM coupler 241, a polarisationcontroller 244 connected to the other output of said WDM coupler 241, animbalanced Mach-Zender interferometer 256 connected to the output ofpolarisation controller 244, two single photon detectors R 261, B 263connected to the two outputs of interferometer 256 and biasingelectronics 243.

Bob's interferometer 256 contains an entrance polarising beam splitter251, a long arm 253 containing a delay loop 254 and a variable delayline 257 is connected to an output of beam splitter 251, a short arm 252containing a phase modulator 255 is connected to the other output ofsaid beam splitter 251, and an exit polarisation maintaining 50/50 fibrecoupler 258 coupling the output from the long 253 and short 252 arms.All components in Bob's interferometer 256 are polarisation maintaining.

Bob first de-multiplexes the transmitted signal received from fibre 205using the WDM coupler 241. The bright clock laser 202 signal is routedto an optical receiver 242 to recover the clock signal for Bob tosynchronise with Alice.

If Alice delivers the clock using an alternative method, Bob willrecover the clock accordingly. If Alice sends the clock signal as asingle bright pulse within each clock cycle which is delayed relative tosignal pulses then Bob may use an imbalanced coupler, such as 90/10, toextract a fraction of the combined signal which is measured with aphoto-diode. A clock pulse is then recovered if the incident intensityis above an appropriately set threshold. Alternatively Bob may detectthe clock on a separate fibre or using a timing reference.

The signal pulses which are separated from the clock pulses by WDMcoupler 241 are fed into a polarisation controller 244 to restore theoriginal polarisation of the signal pulses. This is done so that signalpulses which travelled the short arm 231 in Alice's interferometer 233,will pass the long arm 253 in Bob's interferometer 256. Similarly,signal pulses which travelled through the long arm 232 of Alice'sinterferometer 233 will travel through the short arm 252 of Bob'sinterferometer 256.

The signal/reference pulses from signal laser 207 then pass throughBob's interferometer 256. An entrance polarising beam splitter 251divides the incident pulses with orthogonal linear polarisations. Thetwo outputs of the entrance polarisation beam splitter 251 are alignedsuch that the two output polarisations are both coupled into aparticular axis, usually the slow axis, of the polarisation maintainingfibre. This ensures that signal pulses taking either arm will have thesame polarisation at the exit 50/50 polarisation maintaining coupler258. The long arm 253 of Bob's interferometer 256 contains an opticalfibre delay loop 254 and a variable fibre delay line 257, and the shortarm 252 contains a phase modulator 255. The two arms 252, 253 areconnected to a 50/50 polarisation maintaining fibre coupler 258 with asingle photon detector R 261, B 263 attached to each output arm.

Due to the use of polarising components, there are, in ideal cases, onlytwo routes for a signal pulse travelling from the entrance of Alice'sencoding interferometer 233 to the exit of Bob's interferometer 256:

-   i. Alice's Long Arm 232−Bob's Short Arm 252 (L-S) and-   ii. Alice's Short Arm 231−Bob's Long Arm 253 (S-L).

The variable delay line 257 at Bob's interferometer 256 is adjusted tomake the propagation time along routes (i) and (ii) almost equal, withinthe signal laser coherence time which is typically a few picoseconds fora semiconductor distributed feed back (DFB) laser diode, and therebyensure interference of the two paths.

The variable fiber delay line 257 can either be an airgap, or a fibrestretcher, driven by a piezo-electric actuator. Alternatively, the twodelays can be balanced by carefully controlling the length of fibre inAlice's 233 and Bob's 256 interferometers. Fine adjustment of the lengthof the two optical paths can be achieved through the calibration of zerophase delay in the two modulators 234, 255.

It is important that the central arrival time window of the signalpulses at single photon detectors do not overlap temporally with anyarrival windows of the reference pulses. Otherwise, interferencevisibility will decrease. This can be guaranteed by carefully choosingthe lengths of the delay loops 223, 235 to ensuret_(delay)<t_(reference).

The references pulses are used to actively monitor and stabilise thephase drift of Alice-Bob's encoding interferometer. The detector R canbe a single photon detector. It is gated to be on only upon the centralarrival time of the reference peak and measure the count rate. If thesystem were perfectly stable, the counting rate is constant. Anyvariation in phase drift will be manifested by a varying counting rate.Bob uses any variation in the count rate measured by the referencedetector R 261 as a feedback signal to the variable delay line 257. Thusthe optical delay is adjusted to stabilise the counting rate in thereference detector, and compensate any phase drifts of Alice or Bob'sinterferometers.

Bob can avoid using the delay line 257. The count rate measured by thereference detector R261 can be used a feedback signal to the phasemodulator. The DC-bias applied to the phase modulator is then varied tostabilising the counting rate, and compensate any phase drifts of Aliceor Bob's interferometers.

It is most convenient to maintain the reference detector with a minimumcount rate. In this case, destructive interference is maintained at thereference detector R 261.

The reference detector R 261 and associated electronics should integratethe count rate over a certain period of time in order to averagestatistical fluctuation in the arrival rate of the reference photons.The integration time may typically be a fraction of a second, forexample, 0.1 second. Such feedback times are sufficient since the phasedrift of the Alice and Bob's interferometers occurs over much longertime scales. For highly unstable environment, much shorter feedbacktimes, for example, 0.1 ms, may be employed. Alternatively, the feedbacksignal may be used to recalibrate the zero point of both phasemodulators as described above. This may be done by varying the DC biasapplied to modulators 255 and 234.

The feedback electronics may also condition system for sudden shocks tothe system, such as a sudden change in temperature. If a sudden changein count rate is detected in the reference detector R 261, the resultsin the signal detector B 263 can be ignored until the system regainsstability.

The references pulses are also used to actively monitor and stabilisethe polarisation drift of photons. The two satellites peaks of thereference peak in FIG. 3 b are due to imperfect polarisation control bythe controller 244 and therefore imperfect polarisation beam splittingof the entrance polarisation beam splitter 251 of Bob's interferometer256. The early satellite peak arises from the short arm 231 of Alice'sencoding interferometer 233 to Bob's Short Arm 252, and the latesatellite peak arises from the long arm 232 of Alice's encodinginterferometer 233 to Bob's long arm 253. By gating the referencedetector R 261 to detect during the arrival of one of the satellitepeaks and measure the photon counting rate, Bob can monitor the drift inthe polarisation of the photons and actively stabilise it by feeding themeasurement result back into the polarisation controller 244. Thepolarisation controller 244 rotates the polarisation of photons so as tominimise the count rate of the satellite peak of the reference pulse inthe reference detector R 261.

The reference detector R 261 should integrate photon counts over acertain period of time in order to reduce statistical fluctuation. Theintegration time can again be as short as a fraction of a second, forexample, 0.1 second. This is typically much faster than the time scaleover which the polarisation drifts. Much shorter integration time can bechosen for system operates in unstable conditions.

The system in FIG. 3 a is suitable for implementing the two-stateprotocol known as B92. In this case only one detector is needed on oneoutput arm of Bob's interferometer 256 for detecting encoded singlephotons. As the arm lengths are stabilised so that for zero phase delaythe photon rate into the detector R 261 is minimum, and the photon rateinto the detector B 263 is maximum.

For the B92 protocol Alice applies phase shifts of either 0 or 90° onher phase modulator 234 to the signal pulses. Alice associates 0 phasedelay with bit=0, and 90° phase delay with bit=1. Bob applies either180° or 270° to his phase modulator 255, and associates 180° with bit=1and 270° with bit=0. After Bob's detections, he tells Alice in whichclock cycle he detected a photon and they keep these bits to form ashared sifted key. They then perform error correction and privacyamplification upon the sifted key.

It is most important that Alice and Bob apply the modulation to thesignal pulses only and not the reference pulses during the time thereference pulses passes their phase modulators, should be set to 0° orsome other fixed value. This is to ensure that the reference pulses donot carry any encoded information and therefore an eavesdropper cannotgain any information from measuring the reference pulses. At the sametime, interferences of these pulses are not affected by Alice and Bob'sinformation encoding processes.

FIG. 4 shows plots of the timing schemes which may be used for thequantum cryptographic system of FIG. 3 a.

FIG. 4 a shows the clock signal produced by the clock laser 202 as afunction of time. The clock has a repetition period T_(clock). Therising edge of the clock signal is used to synchronise Alice's signallaser 207, Alice's phase modulator 234, Bob's phase modulator 255 andBob's detectors R 261 and B 263.

The output of the signal laser 207 is shown in FIG. 4 b. For each clockperiod, the signal laser 207 is triggered to produce one pulse of widthd_(laser).

FIG. 4 c plots the probability of a photon arriving at Bob's detectors R261 and A 263 (i.e. sum of the probabilities of a photon arriving atdetector R 261 or detector B 263) as a function of time. Eachsignal/reference pulse now has a width of d_(bob), which may be greaterthan d_(laser) due to dispersion in the fibre. Six arrival windows canbe seen for each clock cycle. These correspond to signal or referencepulses taking the short-short, long-short or short-long and long-longpaths through Alice's-Bob's interferometer. The first and second, aswell as the second and third signal pulses are separated by a time delayt_(delay), and the first and second, as well as the second and thirdreference (strong) signal pulses are also separated by a time delayt_(delay). The central signal peak and central reference peak areseparated by a time delay of t_(reference). The short-short andlong-long paths are observed due to imperfect polarisation beamsplitting at the entrance 251 of Bob's interferometer 256.

Only photons arriving in the central window of the signal pulses of eachclock cycle contribute to quantum key distribution. The single photondetector B 263 is gated to be on only when the central pulse arrives ineach clock cycle, as shown in FIG. 4 e. This is achieved by biasing thedetector with a voltage V_(det2) for which it is in an active state fora short duration d_(det) during each clock cycle when the central pulsearrives. The bias voltage duration d_(det) is typically chosen to belonger than d_(bob) and is typically a few nanoseconds. At other timesthe detector is held at a voltage V_(det1) for which it is inactive.

For a single photon detector based upon an avalanche photodiode, timegating can be achieved by choosing V_(det2) to be greater than theavalanche breakdown voltage of the diode and V_(det1) to be less thanthe breakdown voltage. An avalanche can only be triggered when the diodebias exceeds the breakdown threshold.

The avalanche process generates a large number of charge carriers withinthe diode forming an easily detectable current. Some of these carriersmay be localised at hetero-junctions or at trap states within thesemiconductor. Carriers confined in such traps can have a lifetime ofseveral microseconds. If the diode is biased above the avalanchebreakdown threshold, before the trapped carriers have decayed, there isa possibility that a trapped carrier could be released and then triggeranother avalanche. The resultant spurious signal is called an‘afterpulse’.

To minimise the rate of afterpulse counts, the APD has to be biasedinactive for a sufficiently long time to allow most of the trappedcharge to decay. Thus afterpulsing often limits the minimum periodbetween APD detection gates and thus the minimum clock period T_(clock).Typically T_(clock)˜1 μs.

Alice's and Bob's phase modulators 234 and 255 are driven by separatevoltage pulse generators. The voltage pulse generators are alsosynchronised with the clock signal (of FIG. 4 a), as shown in FIG. 4 d.

During the pass of each signal pulse through the phase modulator, thepulse generator outputs one of a number of voltage levels, V_(mod1),V_(mod2) etc. For the B92 protocol, for instance, Alice applied one oftwo different voltage levels, corresponding to phase shifts of 0° and90°, to her phase modulator 234. Meanwhile Bob applies two voltagelevels to his modulator 255 corresponding to phase shifts of 180° and270°. Alice and Bob vary the applied phase shifts for each signal pulserandomly and independently of one-another.

It is important that Alice and Bob only modulate only the signal pulses,but not the reference pulses. The phase modulator should be set to zeroor some other fixed value during the time that the reference pulsepasses.

If the modulators are also used to compensate for phase drift, the DCbias applied to the modulators shown in FIG. 4 d may be slightly aboveor below the levels shown in FIG. 4 d. The variation from the DC biasillustrated in FIG. 4 d will be controlled by the feedback from themeasurements of the reference pulse.

FIG. 4 f shows the bias scheme for the reference detector R 261. Tomonitor and stabilise the phase drift, the detector is gated to be ononly upon the central arrival window of the reference signal pulses todetect photons taking Long-Short or Short-Long route through Alice-Bob'sencoding interferometer.

This is achieved by biasing the detector with a voltage V_(det2) forwhich it is in an active state for a short duration d_(det1) during eachclock cycle when the central reference pulse arrives, as shown by thesolid line in FIG. 4 f. The bias voltage duration d_(det) is typicallychosen to be longer than d_(bob) and is typically a few nanoseconds. Atother times the detector is held at a voltage V_(det1) for which it isinactive.

To monitor and stabilise the polarisation, the reference detector R isgated to be on only upon one of the satellite arrival window of thereference signal pulses to detect photons. This is shown by thedash-dotted line in FIG. 4 f. The reference detector may alternatebetween measurement of the central and the satellite peak. Measurementsof the central reference peaks are averaged and feedback to stabilisethe phase of the interferometer as described above. Measurements of thesatellite peak are averaged and feedback to stabilise the polarisationinput to Bob's interferometer as described above.

FIG. 4 f shows the case where one reference measurement is made perclock cycle. However, it is also possible to sample the reference pulseless frequently or to supply more than one reference pulse per clockcycle.

FIG. 5 a shows an apparatus for quantum cryptography with activemonitoring and stabilisation on phase and polarisation drifts.

Alice and Bob's equipment is similar to that described with reference toFIG. 3 a. Alice 301 sends photons to Bob 303 along fibre 305.

Alice's equipment 301 comprises a signal laser diode 307, a polarisationrotator 308 receiving output of laser diode 307, a signal/referencepulse separator 324 receiving the output of polarisation rotator 308, animbalanced fibre Mach-Zender interferometer 333 for encoding photonsreceiving the output from separator 324, an attenuator 337 connected tothe output of interferometer 333, a bright clock laser 302, a wavelengthdivision multiplexing (WDM) coupler 339 and bias electronics 309.

The signal/reference pulse separator 324 consists of an entrance fibreoptic coupler 320, a long arm 322 with a loop of fibre 323 designed tocause an optical delay connected to one output of entrance coupler 320,a short arm 321 connected to the other output of entrance coupler 320,and an exit fibre optic coupler 325 combining two arms 321, 322. Allfibres in the separator 324 are polarisation maintaining.

The interferometer 333 shares its entrance coupler 325 with thesignal/reference pulse separator 324, and consists of a long arm 332with a loop of fibre 335 designed to cause an optical delay, a short arm331 with a phase modulator 334, and an exit polarising beam combiner336. All components used in Alice's interferometer 333 are polarisationmaintaining.

During each clock signal, the signal laser diode laser 307 outputs oneoptical pulse.

The polarisation of the signal pulses is rotated by a polarisationrotator 308 so that the polarisation is aligned to be parallel to aparticular axis of the polarisation maintaining fibre, usually the slowaxis, of the entrance coupler of the signal/reference pulse separator324. Alternatively the polarisation rotator 308 may be omitted byrotating the signal laser diode 307 with respect to the axes of theentrance polarisation maintaining fibre coupler 320.

The signal pulses are then fed into the signal/reference pulse separator324 through a polarisation maintaining fibre coupler 320. Signal pulsesare coupled into the same axis, usually the slow axis of thepolarisation maintaining fibre, from both output arms of thepolarisation maintaining fibre coupler 320.

The long arm 322 of the signal/reference pulse separator 324 contains anoptical fibre delay loop 323. The length difference of the two arms 321and 322 corresponds to an optical propagation delay of t_(reference).Typically the length of the delay loop 323 may be chosen to produce adelay t_(reference)˜10 ns. A photon travelling through the long arm 322will lag that travelling through the short arm 321 by a time oft_(reference) at the exit coupler 325 of the signal/reference pulseseparator 324.

The two arms 321 and 322 are combined with an exit polarisationmaintaining fibre optic coupler 325 which also serves as an entrancecoupler of the encoding interferometer 333.

Coupling ratio of two couplers 320 and 325 can be either fixed orvariable. The ratios are chosen so that the reference and signal pulseshave unequal intensities. Typically, before entering the encodinginterferometer 333, the later reference pulse is 10-10000 times strongerthan the earlier signal pulse. For example, the entrance coupler 320 maybe asymmetric so as to allow 90% to 99.99% of the input into arm 321 andthe exit coupler 325 may be a 50/50 coupler. Alternatively, both theentrance 320 and exit couplers 325 may be 50/50 couplers and anappropriate attenuator placed in arm 321.

Properties of the signal and reference pulses are exactly the same, forexample polarisation, wavelength etc, except of course for theirintensity and time and port of injection into the interferometer 333.

The signal and reference pulses are then fed into the imbalancedMach-Zender interferometer 333 through a polarisation maintaining fibrecoupler 325. Signal and reference pulses are coupled into the same axis,usually the slow axis of the polarisation maintaining fibre, from bothoutput arms of the polarisation maintaining fibre coupler 325.

The long arm 332 of the interferometer 333 contains an optical fibredelay loop 335, while the short arm 331 contains a fibre optic phasemodulator 334. The length difference of the two arms 331 and 332corresponds to an optical propagation delay of t_(delay). Typically thelength of the delay loop 335 may be chosen to produce a delayt_(delay)˜5 ns. A photon travelling through the long arm 332 will lagthat travelling through the short arm 331 by a time of t_(delay) at theexit 336 of the interferometer 333.

The two arms 331, 332 are combined together with a polarisation beamcombiner 336 into a single mode fibre 338. The fibre inputs of thepolarisation beam combiner 336 are aligned in such a way that onlyphotons propagating along particular axes of the polarisationmaintaining fibre are output from the combiner 336. Typically, photonswhich propagate along the slow axis and the fast axis are output bycombiner 336 into fibre 338.

The polarising beam combiner 336 has two input ports, an in-line inputport and a 90° input port. One of the input ports is connected to thelong arm 332 of the interferometer 333 and the other input port isconnected to the short arm 331 of the interferometer 333.

Only photons polarised along the slow axis of the in-line input fibre ofthe in-line input port are transmitted by the polarising beam coupler336 and pass into the fibre 338. Photons polarised along the fast axisof the in-line input fibre of the input port are reflected and lost.

Meanwhile, at the 90° input port of the beam coupler 336, only photonspolarised along the slow axis of the 90° input fibre are reflected bythe beam coupler 336 and pass into the output port, while thosepolarised along the fast axis will be transmitted out of the beamcoupler 336 and lost.

This means that the slow axis of one of the two input fibres is rotatedby 90° relative to the output port. Alternatively the polarisation maybe rotated using a polarisation rotator before one of the input ports ofthe polarising beam combiner 336.

Thus, photon pulses which passed through the long 332 and short arms 331will have orthogonal polarisations.

Both the signal and reference pulses are then strongly attenuated by theattenuator 337 so that the average number of photons per pulse μ<<1 forthe signal pulses. The reference pulses are typically 10-1000 strongerthan the signal pulses, and do not have to be attenuated to singlephoton level as information is only encoded upon signal pulses.

The attenuated pulses are then multiplexed with a bright laser clocksource 302 at a different wavelength using a WDM coupler 339. Themultiplexed signal is then transmitted to the receiver Bob 303 along anoptical fibre link 305.

The clock may also be delivered in other ways. For example Alice maymultiplex the signal pulses with a bright clock laser pulse at the sameor different wavelength which is delayed relative to the start of theclock cycle and which does not coincide with the signal pulses.Alternatively the clock signal may be sent on a separate optical fibre.Alternatively, synchronisation may be achieved by using a timingreference.

Bob's equipment 303 comprises WDM coupler 341, a clock recovery unit 342connected to one output of the WDM coupler 341, a polarisationcontroller 344 connected to the other output of the WDM controller 341,an imbalanced Mach-Zender interferometer 356 connected to the output ofthe polarisation controller 344, two single photon detectors R 361, B363 connected to either outputs of interferometer 356 and biasingelectronics 343.

Bob's interferometer 356 contains an entrance polarising beam splitter351, a long arm 353 containing a delay loop 354 and a variable delayline 357 connected to one output of beam splitter 351, a short arm 352containing a phase modulator 355 connected to the other output of beamsplitter 351, and an exit polarisation maintaining 50/50 fibre coupler358. All components in Bob's interferometer 356 are polarisationmaintaining.

Bob first de-multiplexes the transmitted signal received from fibre 305using the WDM coupler 341. The bright clock laser 302 signal is routedto an optical receiver 342 to recover the clock signal for Bob tosynchronise with Alice.

If Alice delivers the clock using an alternative method, Bob willrecover the clock accordingly. If Alice sends the clock signal as asingle bright pulse within each clock cycle which is delayed relative tosignal pulses then Bob may use an imbalanced coupler, such as 90/10, toextract a fraction of the combined signal which is measured with aphoto-diode. A clock pulse is then recovered if the incident intensityis above an appropriately set threshold. Alternatively Bob may detectthe clock on a separate fibre or using a timing reference.

The signal/reference pulses which are separated from the clock pulses byWDM coupler 341 are fed into a polarisation controller 344 to restorethe original polarisation of the signal pulses. This is done so thatsignal pulses which travelled the short arm 331 in Alice'sinterferometer 333, will pass the long arm 353 in Bob's interferometer356. Similarly, signal pulses which travelled through the long arm 332of Alice's interferometer 333 will travel through the short arm 352 ofBob's interferometer.

The signal/reference pulses then pass through Bob's interferometer 356.An entrance polarising beam splitter 351 divides the incident pulseswith orthogonal linear polarisations. The two outputs of the entrancepolarisation beam splitter 351 are aligned such that the two outputpolarisations are both coupled into a particular axis, usually the slowaxis, of the polarisation maintaining fibre. This ensures that signalpulses taking either arm will have the same polarisation at the exit50/50 polarisation maintaining coupler 358. The long arm 353 of Bob'sinterferometer 356 contains an optical fibre delay loop 354 and avariable fibre delay line 357, and the short arm 352 contains a phasemodulator 355. The two arms 352, 353 are connected to a 50/50polarisation maintaining fibre coupler 358 with a single photon detectorR 361, B 363 attached to each output arm.

Due to the use of polarising components, there are, in ideal cases, onlytwo routes for a signal pulse travelling from the entrance of Alice'sencoding interferometer 333 to the exit of Bob's interferometer 356:

-   i. Alice's Long Arm 332−Bob's Short Arm 352 (L-S) and-   ii. Alice's Short Arm 331−Bob's Long Arm 353 (S-L).

The variable delay line 357 at Bob's interferometer 356 is adjusted tomake the propagation time along routes (i) and (ii) almost equal, withinthe signal laser coherence time which is typically a few picoseconds fora semiconductor distributed feed back (DFB) laser diode, and therebyensure interference of the two paths.

The variable fibre delay line 357 can either be an airgap, or a fibrestretcher, driven by a piezo-electric actuator. Alternatively, the twodelays can be balanced by carefully controlling the length of fibre inAlice's 333 and Bob's 356 interferometers. Fine adjustment of the lengthof the two optical paths can be achieved through the calibration of zerophase delay in the two modulators 334, 355.

It is important that the central arrival time window of the signalpulses at single photon detectors do not overlap temporally with anyarrival windows of the reference pulses. Otherwise, interferencevisibility will decrease. This can be guaranteed by carefully choosingthe lengths of the delay loops 323, 335 to ensuret_(delay)<t_(reference).

The references pulses are used to actively monitor and stabilise thephase drift of Alice-Bob's encoding interferometer. The detector R 361can be a single photon detector. It is gated to be on only upon thecentral arrival time window of the reference peak to measure the countrate. If the system were perfectly stable, the counting rate isconstant. Any phase drift will be manifested by a varying counting rate.Bob uses any variation in the count rate measured by the referencedetector R361 as a feedback signal to the variable delay line 357. Thusthe optical delay is adjusted to stabilise the counting rate in thereference detector, and compensate any phase drifts of Alice or Bob'sinterferometers.

It is most convenient to maintain that the reference detector with aminimum count rate. In this case, destructive interference is maintainedat the reference detector R 361.

The reference detector R 361 and associated electronics should integratethe count rate over a certain period of time in order to averagestatistical fluctuation in the arrival rate of the reference photons.The integration time may typically be a fraction of a second, forexample, 0.1 second. Such feedback times are sufficient since the phasedrift of the Alice and Bob's interferometers occurs over much longertime scales. For highly unstable environment, much shorter feedbacktimes, for example, 0.1 ms, may be employed. Alternatively, the feedbacksignal may be used to recalibrate the zero point of both phasemodulator.

The feedback electronics may also condition system for sudden shocks tothe system, such as a sudden change in temperature. If a sudden changein count rate is detected in the reference detector R 361, the resultsin the signal detector B 363 can be ignored until the system regainsstability.

The references pulses are also used to actively monitor and stabilisethe polarisation drift of photons. The two satellites peaks of thereference peak in FIG. 5 b are due to imperfect polarisation control bythe polarisation controller 344 and therefore imperfect polarisationbeam splitting of the entrance polarisation beam splitter 351 of Bob'sinterferometer 356. The early satellite peak arises from the short arm331 of Alice's encoding interferometer 333 to Bob's short arm 352, andthe late satellite peak arises from the long arm 332 of Alice's encodinginterferometer 333 to Bob's long arm 353. By gating the referencedetector R 361 to detect during the arrival time of one of the satellitepeaks and measuring the photon counting rate, Bob can monitor thepolarisation drift of photons and actively stabilise it by feeding themeasurement result back into the polarisation controller 344. Thepolarisation controller 344 rotates the polarisation of photons andminimise the count rate of the reference detector R 361.

The reference detector R 361 should integrate photon counts over acertain period of time in order to reduce statistical fluctuation. Theintegration time can again be as short as a fraction of a second, forexample, 0.1 second. This is typically much faster than the time scaleover which the polarisation drifts. Much shorter integration time can bechosen for system operates in unstable conditions.

The system in FIG. 5 a is suitable for implementing the two-stateprotocol known as B92. In this case only one detector is needed on oneoutput arm of Bob's interferometer for detecting encoded single photons.As the arm lengths are stabilised so that for zero phase delay thephoton rate into the detector R is minimum, and the photon rate into thedetector B 363 is minimum if the applied phase shift difference by twophase modulator is 0.

For the B92 protocol Alice applies phase shifts of 0 and 90° on herphase modulator 334 to the signal pulses. Alice associates 0 phase delaywith bit=0, and 90° phase delay with bit=1. Bob applies 0 or 90° to hisphase modulator 355 to the signal pulses, and associates 0° with bit=1and 90° with bit=0. Note that Bob now applies phase shifts for bits 0and 1 which differ by 180° compared to scheme in FIG. 3. After Bob'sdetections, he tells Alice in which clock cycle he detected a photon andthey keep these bits to form a shared sifted key. They then performerror correction and privacy amplification upon the sifted key.

It is most important that Alice and Bob apply the modulation to thesignal pulses only and not the reference pulses during the time thereference pulses passes their phase modulators, should be set to 0° orsome other fixed value. This is to ensure that the reference pulses donot carry any encoded information and therefore an eavesdropper cannotgain any information from measuring the reference pulses. At the sametime, interferences of these pulses are not affected by Alice and Bob'sinformation encoding processes.

The biasing scheme for the apparatus shown in FIG. 5 a is the same asshown in FIG. 4 a-f.

FIG. 6 a shows an apparatus for quantum cryptography with activemonitoring and stabilisation of polarisation and phase drift. It issuitable for BB84 protocol.

FIG. 6 a is similar to FIG. 3 a. To avoid unnecessary repetition, likereference numerals will be used to denote like features. The onlydifference is that one of the outputs of Bob's interferometer isattached with two single photon detectors R 465, A 461 through anasymmetric fibre optic coupler 464. The coupling ratio is typically95/5, with 95% port attached with single photon detector A 461 forquantum key distribution, and the 5% port attached with single photondetector R 465 for monitoring and stabilising phase and polarisationdrifts. The coupling ratio is chosen so high in order that the coupler464 does not reduce photon count rate of the signal pulses significantlyat the detector 461. Also, as the reference pulses can be setarbitrarily strong, 5% or even smaller coupling into the referencedetector is enough for monitoring photon count rate of referencespulses.

The references pulses are used to actively monitor and stabilise thephase drift of Alice-Bob's encoding interferometer. The detector R 465can be a single photon detector. It is gated to be on only upon thecentral arrival time of the reference peak and measure the count rate.If the system were perfectly stable, the counting rate is constant. Anyvariation in phase drift will be manifested by a varying counting rate.Bob uses any variation in the count rate measured by the referencedetector R 465 as a feedback signal to the variable delay line 257. Thusthe optical delay is adjusted to stabilise the counting rate in thereference detector, and compensate any phase drifts of Alice or Bob'sinterferometers.

It is most convenient to maintain the reference detector with a minimumcount rate. In this case, destructive interference is maintained at thereference detector R 465 and the signal detector A 461.

The reference detector R 465 and associated electronics should integratethe count rate over a certain period of time in order to averagestatistical fluctuation in the arrival rate of the reference photons.The integration time may typically be a fraction of a second, forexample, 0.1 second. Such feedback times are sufficient since the phasedrift of the Alice and Bob's interferometers occurs over much longertime scales. For highly unstable environment, much shorter feedbacktimes, for example, 0.1 ms, may be employed. Alternatively, the feedbacksignal may be used to recalibrate the zero point of both phasemodulator.

The feedback electronics may also condition system for sudden shocks tothe system, such as a sudden change in temperature. If a sudden changein count rate is detected in the reference detector R 465, the resultsin the signal detectors A 461 and B 463 can be ignored until the systemregains stability.

The references pulses are also used to actively monitor and stabilisethe polarisation drift of photons. The two satellites peaks of thereference peak in FIG. 6 b are due to imperfect polarisation control bythe controller 244 and therefore imperfect polarisation beam splittingof the entrance polarisation beam splitter 251 of Bob's interferometer256. The early satellite peak arises from the short arm 231 of Alice'sencoding interferometer 233 to Bob's Short Arm 252, and the latesatellite peak arises from the long arm 232 of Alice's encodinginterferometer 233 to Bob's long arm 253. By gating the referencedetector R 465 to detect during the arrival of one of the satellitepeaks and measure the photon counting rate, Bob can monitor the drift inthe polarisation of the photons and actively stabilise it by feeding themeasurement result back into the polarisation controller 244. Thepolarisation controller 244 rotates the polarisation of photons so as tominimise the count rate of the satellite peak of the reference pulse inthe reference detector R 465.

The reference detector R 465 should integrate photon counts over acertain period of time in order to reduce statistical fluctuation. Theintegration time can again be as short as a fraction of a second, forexample, 0.1 second. This is typically much faster than the time scaleover which the polarisation drifts. Much shorter integration time can bechosen for system operates in unstable conditions.

In the four-state protocol, which is sometimes referred to as BB84,Alice sets the voltage on her phase modulator to one of four differentvalues, corresponding to phase shifts of 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°. Phase0° and 180° are associated with bits 0 and 1 in a first encoding basis,while 90° and 270° are associated with 0 and 1 in a second encodingbasis. The second encoding basis is chosen to be non-orthogonal to thefirst. The phase shift is chosen at random for each signal pulse andAlice records the phase shift applied for each clock cycle.

Meanwhile Bob randomly varies the voltage applied to his phase modulatorbetween two values corresponding to 0° and 90°. This amounts toselecting between the first and second measurement bases, respectively.Bob records the phase shift applied and the measurement result (i.ephoton at detector A 461, photon at detector B 463, photon at detector A461 and detector B 463, or no photon detected) for each clock cycle.

In the BB84 protocol, Alice and Bob can form a shared key bycommunicating on a classical channel after Bob's measurements have takenplace. Bob tells Alice in which clock cycles he measured a photon andwhich measurement basis he used, but not the result of the measurement.Alice then tells Bob the clock cycles in which she used the sameencoding basis and they agree to keep only those results, as in thiscase Bob will have made deterministic measurements upon the encodedphotons. Bob associates a click at the signal detector A 461 with bit=1and a click at the signal detector B 463 with bit=0. This is followed byerror correction, to remove any errors in their shared key, and privacyamplification to exclude any information known to an eavesdropper.

FIG. 7 a shows an apparatus for quantum cryptography with a singlephoton source and a laser diode as a reference.

FIG. 7 a is similar to FIG. 3 a. The main difference is that the signalpulse is replaced with a truly single photon source.

Alice and Bob's equipment is similar to that described with reference toFIG. 3 a. Alice 501 sends photons to Bob 503 along fibre 505.

Alice's equipment 501 comprises a reference laser diode 507, a polarisedsingle photon source 506, a polarisation rotator 508 receiving theoutput of said laser diode 507, an attenuator 504 receiving the outputof said polarisation rotator 508, a delay loop 523 receiving the outputof said attenuator 504, a polarisation maintaining fibre optic coupler510 coupling the output from said delay loop 523 and said single photonsource 506, an imbalanced fibre Mach-Zender interferometer 533 receivingthe output from said coupler 510, a narrow band pass filter 537receiving the output from said interferometer 533, a bright clock laser502, a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) coupler 539 coupling theoutput from filter 537 and clock laser 502 and bias electronics 509.

The interferometer 533 consists of an entrance coupler 530 connected toboth: a long arm 532 with a loop of fibre 535 designed to cause anoptical delay; and a short arm 531 with a phase modulator 534, and anexit polarising beam combiner 536. All components used in Alice'sinterferometer 533 are polarisation maintaining.

During each clock signal, the reference laser diode 507 outputs onereference pulse and the single photon source 506 emits a polarisedsingle photon signal pulse.

The polarisation of the reference pulse is rotated by a polarisationrotator 508 so that the polarisation is aligned to be parallel to aparticular axis of the polarisation maintaining fibre, usually the slowaxis, of the entrance port of the polarisation maintaining fibre coupler510. Alternatively the polarisation rotator 508 may be omitted byrotating the signal laser diode 507 with respect to the axes of theentrance of polarisation maintaining coupler 510.

The reference pulses are then attenuated by the attenuator 504 so thaton average each reference pulse typically contains 10-10000 photons whenleaving Alice's apparatus 501.

The polarisation of the single photon signal pulse is aligned to thesame axis to the polarisation maintaining fibre of the polarisationmaintaining coupler 510 as the attenuated reference pulses.

The reference pulse passes a delay loop 523, and then is combined withthe single photon signal pulses by a polarisation maintaining fibreoptic coupler 510. The coupling ratio is typically 99.5/0.5. It ischosen so that the single photon source is hardly attenuated whenpassing this fibre coupler 510 before entering the imbalancedinterferometer 533.

The delay loop 523 causes an optical propagation delay of t_(reference).Typically the length of the delay loop 523 may be chosen to produce adelay t_(reference)˜10 ns. Reference pulses lag single photon pulses bya time of t_(reference) at the exit port of the polarisation maintainingfibre coupler 510.

The output of the coupler with hardly attenuated single photon pulses isconnected into an input of the imbalanced Mach-Zender interferometer533.

The wavelength of the reference laser diode 507 has to be chosen nearlythe same as that of the single photon source.

The single photon and reference pulses are then fed into the imbalanceMach-Zender interferometer 533 through a polarisation maintaining fibrecoupler 530. Signal pulses are coupled into the same axis, usually theslow axis of the polarisation maintaining fibre, from both output armsof the polarisation maintaining fibre coupler 530.

The long arm 532 of the interferometer 533 contains an optical fibredelay loop 535, while the short arm 531 contains a fibre optic phasemodulator 534. The length difference of the two arms 531 and 532corresponds to an optical propagation delay of t_(delay). Typically thelength of the delay loop 535 may be chosen to produce a delayt_(delay)˜5 ns. A photon travelling through the long arm 532 will lagthat travelling through the short arm 531 by a time of t_(delay) at theexit 536 of the interferometer 533.

The two arms 531, 532 are combined together with a polarisation beamcombiner 536 into a single mode fibre 538. The fibre inputs of thepolarisation beam combiner 536 are aligned in such a way that onlyphotons propagating along particular axes of the polarisationmaintaining fibre are outputted from the combiner 536. Typically,photons which propagate along the slow axis and the fast axis are outputby combiner 536 into fibre 538.

The polarising beam combiner 536 has two input ports, an in-line inputport and a 90° input port. One of the input ports is connected to thelong arm 532 of the interferometer 533 and the other input port isconnected to the short arm 531 of the interferometer 533.

Only photons polarised along the slow axis of the in-line input fibre ofthe in-line input port are transmitted by the polarising beam coupler536 and pass into the fibre 538. Photons polarised along the fast axisof the in-line input fibre of the input port are reflected and lost.

Meanwhile, at the 90° input port of the beam coupler 536, only photonspolarised along the slow axis of the 90° input fibre are reflected bythe beam coupler 536 and pass into the output port, while thosepolarised along the fast axis will be transmitted out of the beamcoupler 536 and lost.

This means that the slow axis of one of the two input fibres is rotatedby 90° relative to the output port. Alternatively the polarisation maybe rotated using a polarisation rotator before one of the input ports ofthe polarising beam combiner 536.

Thus, photon pulses which passed through the long 532 and short arms 531will have orthogonal polarisations.

The single photon signal pulses and reference pulses then pass through anarrow band pass filter 537 whose transmission window is spectrallycentred at the wavelength of the single photon signal source. Thefiltered reference pulses then have the exact same wavelength as thesingle photon source.

The filtered pulses are then multiplexed with a bright laser clocksource 502 at a different wavelength using a WDM coupler 539. Themultiplexed signal is then transmitted to the receiver Bob 503 along anoptical fibre link 505.

The clock may also be delivered in other ways. For example Alice maymultiplex the signal pulses with a bright clock laser pulse at the sameor different wavelength which is delayed relative to the start of theclock cycle and which does not coincide with the signal pulses.Alternatively the clock signal may be sent on a separate optical fibre.Alternatively, synchronisation may be achieved by using a timingreference.

Bob's equipment 503 comprises WDM coupler 541, a clock recovery unit 542connected to one output of the WDM coupler 541, a polarisationcontroller 544 connected to the other output of WDM coupler 541, animbalanced Mach-Zender interferometer 556 connected to the output ofpolarisation controller 544, two single photon detectors R 561, B 563connected to the two outputs of interferometer 556 and biasingelectronics 543.

Bob's interferometer 556 comprises an entrance polarising beam splitter551, a long arm 553 containing a delay loop 554 and a variable delayline 557, a short arm 552 containing a phase modulator 555, and an exitpolarisation maintaining 50/50 fibre coupler 558. All components inBob's interferometer 556 are polarisation maintaining.

Bob first de-multiplexes the transmitted signal received from fibre 505using the WDM coupler 541. The bright clock laser 502 signal is routedto an optical receiver 542 to recover the clock signal for Bob tosynchronise with Alice.

If Alice delivers the clock using an alternative method, Bob willrecover the clock accordingly. If Alice sends the clock signal as asingle bright pulse within each clock cycle which is delayed relative tosignal pulses then Bob may use an imbalanced coupler, such as 90/10, toextract a fraction of the combined signal which is measured with aphoto-diode. A clock pulse is then recovered if the incident intensityis above an appropriately set threshold. Alternatively Bob may detectthe clock on a separate fibre or using a timing reference.

The single photon and references pulses which are separated from theclock pulses by WDM coupler 541 are fed into a polarisation controller544 to restore the original polarisation of the signal pulses. This isdone so that signal pulses which travelled the short arm 531 in Alice'sinterferometer 533, will pass the long arm 553 in Bob's interferometer556. Similarly, signal pulses which travelled through the long arm 532of Alice's interferometer 533 will travel through the short arm 552 ofBob's interferometer 556.

The single photon source and reference pulses then pass Bob'sinterferometer 556. An entrance polarising beam splitter 551 divides theincident pulses with orthogonal linear polarisations. The two outputs ofthe entrance polarisation beam splitter 551 are aligned such that thetwo output polarisations are both coupled into a particular axis,usually the slow axis, of the polarisation maintaining fibre. Thisensures that signal pulses taking either arm will have the samepolarisation at the exit 50/50 polarisation maintaining coupler 558. Thelong arm 553 of Bob's interferometer 556 contains an optical fibre delayloop 554 and a variable fibre delay line 557, and the short arm 552contains a phase modulator 555. The two arms 552, 553 are connected to a50/50 polarisation maintaining fibre coupler 558 with a single photondetector R 561, B 563 attached to each output arm.

Due to the use of polarising components, there are, in ideal cases, onlytwo routes for a single photon or a reference pulse travelling from theentrance of Alice's encoding interferometer 533 to the exit of Bob'sinterferometer 556:

-   i. Alice's Long Arm 532−Bob's Short Arm 552 (L-S) and-   ii. Alice's Short Arm 531−Bob's Long Arm 553 (S-L).

The variable delay line 557 at Bob's interferometer 556 is adjusted tomake the propagation time along routes (i) and (ii) almost equal, withinthe signal laser coherence time which is typically a few picoseconds fora semiconductor distributed feed back (DFB) laser diode, and therebyensure interference of the two paths.

The variable fibre delay line 557 can either be an airgap, or a fibrestretcher, driven by a piezo-electric actuator. Alternatively, the twodelays can be balanced by carefully controlling the length of fibre inAlice's 533 and Bob's 556 interferometers. Fine adjustment of the lengthof the two optical paths can be achieved through the calibration of zerophase delay in the two modulators 534, 555.

It is important that the central arrival time window of the signalpulses at single photon detectors do not overlap temporally with anyarrival windows of the reference pulses. Otherwise, interferencevisibility will decrease. This can be guaranteed by carefully choosingthe lengths of the delay loops 523, 535 to ensuret_(delay)<t_(reference).

The references pulses are used to actively monitor and stabilise thephase drift of Alice-Bob's encoding interferometer. The detector R 561can be a single photon detector. It is gated to be on only upon thecentral arrival time of the reference peak and measure the count rate.If the system were perfectly stable, the counting rate is constant. Anyvariation in phase drift will be manifested by a varying counting rate.Bob uses any variation in the count rate measured by the referencedetector R 561 as a feedback signal to the variable delay line 557. Thusthe optical delay is adjusted to stabilise the counting rate in thereference detector, and compensate any phase drifts of Alice or Bob'sinterferometers.

It is most convenient to maintain the reference detector with a minimumcount rate. In this case, destructive interference is maintained at thereference detector R 561.

The reference detector R 561 and associated electronics should integratethe count rate over a certain period of time in order to averagestatistical fluctuation in the arrival rate of the reference photons.The integration time may typically be a fraction of a second, forexample, 0.1 second. Such feedback times are sufficient since the phasedrift of the Alice and Bob's interferometers occurs over much longertime scales. For highly unstable environment, much shorter feedbacktimes, for example, 0.1 ms, may be employed. Alternatively, the feedbacksignal may be used to recalibrate the zero point of both phasemodulator.

The feedback electronics may also condition system for sudden shocks tothe system, such as a sudden change in temperature. If a sudden changein count rate is detected in the reference detector R 561, the resultsin the signal detector B 563 can be ignored until the system regainsstability.

The references pulses are also used to actively monitor and stabilisethe polarisation drift of photons. The two satellites peaks of thereference peak in FIG. 7 b are due to imperfect polarisation control bythe controller 544 and therefore imperfect polarisation beam splittingof the entrance polarisation beam splitter 551 of Bob's interferometer556. The early satellite peak arises from the short arm 531 of Alice'sencoding interferometer 533 to Bob's Short Arm 552, and the latesatellite peak arises from the long arm 532 of Alice's encodinginterferometer 533 to Bob's long arm 553. By gating the referencedetector R 561 to detect during the arrival of one of the satellitepeaks and measure the photon counting rate, Bob can monitor the drift inthe polarisation of the photons and actively stabilise it by feeding themeasurement result back into the polarisation controller 544. Thepolarisation controller 544 rotates the polarisation of photons so as tominimise the count rate of the satellite peak of the reference pulse inthe reference detector R 561.

The reference detector R 561 should integrate photon counts over acertain period of time in order to reduce statistical fluctuation. Theintegration time can again be as short as a fraction of a second, forexample, 0.1 second. This is typically much faster than the time scaleover which the polarisation drifts. Much shorter integration time can bechosen for system operates in unstable conditions.

The system in FIG. 7 a is suitable for implementing the two-stateprotocol known as B92. In this case only one detector is needed on oneoutput arm of Bob's interferometer for detecting encoded single photons.As the arm lengths are stabilised so that for zero phase delay thephoton rate into the detector R 561 is minimum, and the photon rate intothe detector B 563 is maximum.

For the B92 protocol Alice applies phase shifts of 0 and 90° on herphase modulator 534 to the signal pulses. Alice associates 0 phase delaywith bit=0, and 90° phase delay with bit=1. Bob applies 180° or 270° tohis phase modulator 555 to the signal pulses, and associates 180° withbit=1 and 270° with bit=0. After Bob's detections, he tells Alice inwhich clock cycle he detected a photon and they keep these bits to forma shared sifted key. They then perform error correction and privacyamplification upon the sifted key.

It is most important that Alice and Bob apply the modulation to thesignal pulses only and not the reference pulses during the time thereference pulses passes their phase modulators, should be set to 0° orsome other fixed value. This is to ensure that the reference pulses donot carry any encoded information and therefore an eavesdropper cannotgain any information from measuring the reference pulses. At the sametime, interferences of these pulses are not affected by Alice and Bob'sinformation encoding processes.

FIG. 8 a shows an apparatus for quantum cryptography with a singlephoton source and a reference laser diode for active monitor andstabilisation of phase and polarisation drifts.

Alice and Bob's equipment is similar to that described with reference toFIG. 7 a. Thus, to avoid unnecessary repetition, like reference numeralswill be used to denote like features The only difference is that thesingle photon source and the reference pulses enter Alice'sinterferometer 533 through different ports. Specifically, Alice'sequipment comprises a reference laser diode 607, a polarised singlephoton source 606, a polarisation rotator 608 receiving the output ofsaid reference laser diode 607, an attenuator 604 receiving the outputfrom said polarisation rotator 608, a delay loop 623 connected to theoutput of said polarisation rotator, an imbalanced fibre Mach-Zenderinterferometer 533 receiving the output from both delay loop 623 andsingle photon source 606, a bright clock laser 502, a wavelengthdivision multiplexing (WDM) coupler 539 coupling the output from bothfilter 537 and clock laser 502, and finally bias electronics 509.

The interferometer is the same as that described with reference to FIG.7 a and has an entrance coupler 630 connected to long arm 532 and shortarm 531.

During each clock signal, the reference laser diode 607 outputs onereference pulse and the single photon source 606 emits a polarisedsingle photon pulse.

The polarisation of the reference pulse is rotated by a polarisationrotator 608 so that the polarisation is aligned to be parallel to aparticular axis of the polarisation maintaining fibre, usually the slowaxis, of one entrance port of the polarisation maintaining fibre coupler630 of interferometer 533. Alternatively, the polarisation rotator 608may be omitted by rotating the signal laser diode 607 with respect tothe axes of the selected entrance port of entrance couple 630. Thereference pulses are then attenuated by attenuator 604 so that onaverage, each reference pulse typically contains 10-10,000 photons whenleaving Alice's apparatus 501.

The output of the single photon source 606 is received by the otherentrance port of entrance coupler 630. Although the reference pulse andthe signal pulse enter the entrance coupler 630 through different ports,they are both aligned to the same polarisation axis of the polarisationmaintaining fibres of coupler 630. The photons are then processed in thesame manner as described with reference to FIG. 7 a.

FIG. 8 b is a plot of probability of a photon arriving at either ofdetectors R 561 and B 563 against time. As explained with reference toFIG. 3 a, a central reference peak with early and late satellites and acentral signal peak with late and early satellites are observed.

FIG. 9 a shows an apparatus for quantum cryptography with activestabilisation.

Alice and Bob's equipment is similar to that described with reference toFIG. 3 a. The main difference is that polarisation division is not usedin FIG. 9 a.

Alice's equipment 701 comprises a signal laser diode 707, a polarisationrotator 708 receiving the output of said signal laser diode 707, asignal/reference pulse separator 724 receiving the output of saidpolarisation rotator 708, an imbalanced fibre Mach-Zender interferometer733 for encoding photons receiving the output from said pulse separator724, an attenuator 737 attenuating the output of said interferometer, abright clock laser 702, a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) coupler739 coupling the output from said clock laser 702 and said attenuator737 and bias electronics 709.

The signal/reference pulse separator 724 comprises an entrance fibreoptic coupler 720 connected to: a long arm 722 with a loop of fibre 723designed to cause an optical delay; and a short arm 721, the separatorfurther comprising an exit fibre optic coupler 725 combining two arms721 and 722. All fibre in the separator 724 is polarisation maintaining.

The encoding interferometer 733 consists of an entrance coupler 730connected to both: a long arm 732 with a loop of fibre 735 designed tocause an optical delay; and a short arm 731 with a phase modulator 734,the interferometer 733 further comprising an exit polarising maintainingfibre coupler 736. All components used in Alice's interferometer 733 arepolarisation maintaining.

During each clock signal, the signal laser diode laser 707 outputs oneoptical pulse.

The polarisation of the pulses is rotated by a polarisation rotator 708so that the polarisation is aligned to be parallel to a particular axisof the polarisation maintaining fibre, usually the slow axis, of theentrance coupler 720 of the signal/reference pulse separator 724.Alternatively the polarisation rotator 708 may be omitted by rotatingthe signal laser diode 707 with respect to the axes of the entrancecoupler 720.

The pulses are then fed into the signal/reference pulse separator 724through a polarisation maintaining fibre coupler 720. The pulses arecoupled into the same axis, usually the slow axis of the polarisationmaintaining fibre, from both output arms of the polarisation maintainingfibre coupler 720.

The long arm 722 of the separator 724 contains an optical fibre delayloop 723. The length difference of the two arms 721 and 722 correspondsto an optical propagation delay of t_(reference). Typically the lengthof the delay loop 723 may be chosen to produce a delay t_(reference)˜10ns. A photon travelling through the long arm 722 will lag thattravelling through the short arm 721 by a time of t_(reference) at theexit coupler 725 of the separator 724.

The two arms 721 and 722 are combined together with an exit polarisationmaintaining fibre optic coupler 725. One output is connected into oneinput of the encoding Mach-Zender interferometer 733.

Coupling ratio of two couplers 720 and 725 can be either fixed orvariable. The ratios are chosen so that the signal and reference pulseshave unequal intensities. Typically, before entering the encodinginterferometer 733, the reference pulse is 10-10000 times stronger thanthe signal pulse.

Properties of the signal and reference pulses are exactly the same, forexample polarisation, wavelength etc, except of course for theirintensity and time of injection into the interferometer 733.

The signal and reference pulses are then fed into the imbalancedMach-Zender interferometer 733 through a polarisation maintaining fibrecoupler 730. Signal and reference pulses are coupled into the same axis,usually the slow axis of the polarisation maintaining fibre, from bothoutput arms of the polarisation maintaining fibre coupler 730.

The long arm 732 of the interferometer 733 contains an optical fibredelay loop 735, while the short arm 731 contains a fibre optic phasemodulator 734. The length difference of the two arms 731 and 732corresponds to an optical propagation delay of t_(delay). Typically thelength of the delay loop 735 may be chosen to produce a delayt_(delay)˜5 ns. A photon travelling through the long arm 732 will lagthat travelling through the short arm 731 by a time of t_(delay) at theexit 736 of the interferometer 733.

The two arms 731, 732 are combined together with a polarisationmaintaining fibre coupler 736 into a single mode fibre.

Thus, photon pulses which passed through the long 732 and short arms 731will have same polarisation.

Both the signal and reference pulses are then strongly attenuated by theattenuator 737 so that the average number of photons per pulse μ<<1 forthe signal pulses. The reference pulses are typically 10-1000 strongerthan the signal pulses, and do not have to be attenuated to singlephoton level as information is only encoded upon signal pulses.

The attenuated pulses are then multiplexed with a bright laser clocksource 702 at a different wavelength using a WDM coupler 739. Themultiplexed signal is then transmitted to the receiver Bob 703 along anoptical fibre link 705.

Bob's equipment 703 comprises WDM coupler 741, a clock recovery unit 742connected to one output of said WDM coupler 741, a polarisationcontroller 744 connected to the other output of said WDM coupler 741, apolarisation beam splitter 745 connected to the output of saidpolarisation controller, an imbalanced Mach-Zender interferometer 756connected to a first output of said polarisation beam splitter 745,three single photon detectors R 761, B 763, P 765, two, R 761 and B 763,connected to the two outputs of interferometer 756 and the other P 765connected to a second output of said polarisation beam splitter 745, andbiasing electronics 743. Bob's interferometer 756 contains an entrancepolarising maintaining coupler 751, a long arm 752 containing a delayloop 754 and a variable delay line 757, a short arm 753 containing aphase modulator 755, and an exit polarisation maintaining 50/50 fibrecoupler 758. All components in Bob's interferometer 756 are polarisationmaintaining.

Bob first de-multiplexes the transmitted signal received from fibre 705using the WDM coupler 741. The bright clock laser 702 signal is routedto an optical receiver 742 to recover the clock signal for Bob tosynchronise with Alice.

The signal and reference pulses which are separated from the clockpulses by WDM coupler 741 are fed into a polarisation controller 744 torestore the original polarisation of the signal pulses. This is done sothat all photons can pass through the polarisation beam splitter 745.

The signal and reference pulses then pass Bob's interferometer 756. Anentrance polarising maintaining fibre coupler 751 splits the incidentpulses into two arms with same polarisation. The two outputs of theentrance coupler 751 are aligned such that the two output polarisationsare both coupled into a particular axis, usually the slow axis, of thepolarisation maintaining fibre. This ensures that signal pulses takingeither arm will have the same polarisation at the exit 50/50polarisation maintaining coupler 758. The long arm 753 of Bob'sinterferometer 756 contains an optical fibre delay loop 754 and avariable fibre delay line 757, and the short arm 752 contains a phasemodulator 755. The two arms 752, 753 are connected to a 50/50polarisation maintaining fibre coupler 758 with a single photon detectorR 761, B 763 attached to each output arm.

There are four routes for a signal pulse travelling from the entrance ofAlice's encoding interferometer 733 to the exit of Bob's interferometer756:

-   i. Alice's Short Arm 731−Bob's Short Arm 753 (S-S);-   ii. Alice's Long Arm 732−Bob's Short Arm 753 (L-S);-   iii. Alice's Short Arm 731−Bob's Long Arm 752 (S-L); and-   iv. Alice's Long Arm 732−Bob's Long Arm 752.

The variable delay line 757 at Bob's interferometer 756 is adjusted tomake the propagation time along routes (ii) and (iii) almost equal,within the signal laser coherence time which is typically a fewpicoseconds for a semiconductor distributed feed back (DFB) laser diode,and thereby ensure interference of the two paths.

The variable fiber delay line 757 can either be an airgap, or a fibrestretcher, driven by a piezo-electric actuator. Alternatively, the twodelays can be balanced by carefully controlling the length of fibre inAlice's 733 and Bob's 756 interferometers. Fine adjustment of the lengthof the two optical paths can be achieved through the calibration of zerophase delay in the two modulators 734, 755.

Only photons arriving at the central windows at detectors R 761 and B763 undergo interferences and are thus of interest.

It is important that the central arrival time window of the signalpulses at single photon detectors do not overlap temporally with anyarrival windows of the reference pulses. Otherwise, interferencevisibility will decrease. This can be guaranteed by carefully choosingthe lengths of the delay loops 723, 735 to ensuret_(delay)<t_(reference).

The references pulses are used to actively monitor and stabilise thephase drift of Alice-Bob's encoding interferometer. The detector R 761can be a single photon detector. It is gated to be on only upon thecentral arrival time of the reference peak and measure the count rate.If the system were perfectly stable, the counting rate is constant. Anyvariation in phase drift will be manifested by a varying counting rate.Bob uses any variation in the count rate measured by the referencedetector R 761 as a feedback signal to the variable delay line 757. Thusthe optical delay is adjusted to stabilise the counting rate in thereference detector, and compensate any phase drifts of Alice or Bob'sinterferometers.

It is most convenient to maintain the reference detector with a minimumcount rate. In this case, destructive interference is maintained at thereference detector R 761.

The reference detector R 761 and associated electronics should integratethe count rate over a certain period of time in order to averagestatistical fluctuation in the arrival rate of the reference photons.The integration time may typically be a fraction of a second, forexample, 0.1 second. Such feedback times are sufficient since the phasedrift of the Alice and Bob's interferometers occurs over much longertime scales. For highly unstable environment, much shorter feedbacktimes, for example, 0.1 ms, may be employed. Alternatively, the feedbacksignal may be used to recalibrate the zero point of both phasemodulator.

The feedback electronics may also condition system for sudden shocks tothe system, such as a sudden change in temperature. If a sudden changein count rate is detected in the reference detector R 761, the resultsin the signal detector B 763 can be ignored until the system regainsstability.

The references pulses are also used to actively monitor and stabilisethe polarisation of photons with the help of the single photon detectorP 765.

The single photon detector P 765 is attached to reflecting port of thepolarisation beam splitter 745. If the polarisation controller fullyrecover the polarisation of the signal pulses, all photons will betransmitted and no photons will be reflected into the single photondetector P 765. If there is a polarisation drift, part of the signalphotons will be reflected into the single photon detector P 765.

There will be two time windows of photons arriving at the detector P 765for each signal or reference pulse. The separation of two arrivingwindow is t_(delay). The early window corresponds to photons passingthrough the short arm 731 of Alice's interferometer, and the late windowcorresponds to photons passing through the long arm 732 of Alice'sinterferometer.

By gating the detector P 765 to detect during at least one of thearrival windows of the reference pulses and measure the photon countingrate, Bob can monitor the drift in the polarisation of the photons andactively stabilise it by feeding the measurement result into thepolarisation controller 744. The polarisation controller 744 adjustsaccording to the feed back and minimise the photon count rate, and thusmaintain the polarisation of the photon pulses.

The detector P 765 should integrate photon counts over a certain periodof time in order to reduce statistical fluctuation. The integration timecan again be as short as a fraction of a second, for example, 0.1second. This is typically much faster than the time scale over which thepolarisation drifts. Much shorter integration time can be chosen forsystem operates in unstable conditions.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A quantum communication system comprisingan emitter and a receiver, said emitter comprising an encoder and atleast one photon source, said emitter configured to pass a signal pulseand a reference pulse, which are separated in time, the signal andreference pulses being separated in time prior to entry into saidencoder, said receiver comprising a decoder and at least one detectorfor measuring said signal pulse and said reference pulse, wherein thesignal pulse is encoded as said signal pulse passes through the encoderand the reference pulse when passing through the encoder is encoded withinformation which is uncorrelated with that of the encoding of thesignal pulse, wherein a reference detector is configured to detectvariations in the phase of said reference pulse; and wherein saidreceiver further comprises an integrator for integrating a count valueof said reference detector.
 2. A quantum communication system accordingto claim 1, wherein an average number of photons per signal pulse isless than one photon and an average number of photons per referencepulse is greater than the average number of photons per signal pulse,the signal and reference pulses being separated in time prior to entryinto said encoder.
 3. A quantum communication system according to claim1, wherein the encoder is a phase encoder comprising an encodinginterferometer said encoding interferometer comprising an entrancemember connected to a long arm and a short arm, said long arm and saidshort arm joined at their other ends by an exit member, one of said armshaving a phase modulator which allows the phase of a photon passingthrough that arm to be set to one of at least two values.
 4. A quantumcommunication system according to claim 3, wherein said decoder is aphase decoder comprising a decoding interferometer, said decodinginterferometer comprises an entrance member connected to a long arm anda short arm, said long arm and said short arm being joined at theirother ends by an exit member, one of said arms having a phase modulatorwhich allows the phase of a photon passing through that arm to be set toone of at least two values.
 5. A quantum communication system accordingto claim 4, further comprising a polarisation director for directingphotons which have passed through the long arm of the encodinginterferometer through the short arm of the decoding interferometer andfor directing photons which have passed through the short arm of theencoding interferometer through the long arm of the decodinginterferometer.
 6. A quantum communication system according to claim 1,wherein the receiver further comprises a feedback system for altering acomponent of the receiver on the basis of the measured reference signal.7. A quantum communication system according to claim 6, wherein thecomponent is a polarisation controller.
 8. A quantum communicationsystem according to claim 7, wherein photons in the emitter areconfigured to be emitted with a first polarisation direction and thereceiver comprises a polarisation beam splitter configured to directphotons with an orthogonal polarisation direction to the firstpolarisation direction into a detector for measuring said referencepulse.
 9. A quantum communication system according to claim 5 wherein acomponent of the receiver is a polarisation controller and, wherein thereceiver comprises at least one detector configured to measure signalsarising due to photons either passing through the long arms of bothinterferometers or the short arms of both interferometers.
 10. A quantumcommunication system according to claim 4, wherein the receiver furthercomprises a feedback system for altering a component of the receiver onthe basis of the measured reference signal and said component isconfigured to vary the length of one of the arms of said decodinginterferometer.
 11. A quantum communication system according to claim 4,wherein the receiver further comprises a feedback system for altering acomponent of the receiver on the basis of the measured reference signaland said component is said phase modulator, said feedback system beingconfigured to finely adjust said phase applied by said phase modulator.12. A quantum communication system according to claim 10, wherein areference detector to detect the reference pulse is provided to receivean output from the exit member of said decoder.
 13. A method ofcommunicating photon pulses from an emitter to a receiver, comprising:generating a signal pulse and a reference pulse separated in time in anemitter; passing both the signal pulse and the reference pulse throughthe same encoder in said emitter and sending said pulses to a receiver,said signal pulse and reference pulse being temporally separated as theyenter said encoder, wherein the signal pulse is encoded as the signalpulse passes through the encoder and the reference pulse when passingthrough the encoder is encoded with information which is uncorrelatedwith that of the encoding of the signal pulse; and measuring both thesignal pulse and the reference pulse in said receiver, includingdetecting variations in the phase of said reference pulse, andintegrating a count rate of said reference pulse.
 14. A method accordingto claim 13, further comprising altering a component of said receiver onthe basis of the measured reference pulse.
 15. A method of outputtingphotons from an emitter, the method comprising: generating a signalpulse and a reference pulse separated in time in an emitter; passingboth the signal pulse and the reference pulse through the same encoderin said emitter and outputting said pulses, wherein the signal pulse isencoded as the signal pulse passes through the encoder and the referencepulse when passing through the encoder is encoded with information whichis uncorrelated with that of the encoding of the signal pulse; detectingvariations in the phase of said reference pulse; and integrating a countrate of said reference pulse.